Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, to which legislation his Department has applied the Family Test, published in August 2014.
Answered by Steve Baker
The Government is committed to supporting families. To achieve this, in 2014 the Department for Work and Pensions introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by ministers. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, pursuant to the Answer of 30 November 2017 to Question HL3576, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen families.
Answered by Robin Walker
The Government is committed to supporting families. To achieve this, in 2014 the Department for Work and Pensions introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by ministers.
The Prime Minister has also been clear that the process of exiting the European Union should not affect the ability of families to stay together. In the Joint Report on progress regarding the UK’s exit from the European Union, published on 8th December, it was announced that for EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU, who are captured by the Withdrawal Agreement, close family members will be able to join after exit on the basis of current EU rules, where the relationship existed at the point of the UK’s withdrawal. All family members lawfully resident with an EU citizen at the point of the UK’s withdrawal will also be protected and children born, before or after exit, to parents protected by the Withdrawal Agreement are entitled to join them.